He promised them a "lavish lifestyle" - but explained his funds were tied up in his divorce.

So, Sacher shelled out her own money … only to later realise he didn't have the money to pay her back.

Now Winter has been judged against in a civil fraud case she had taken against him.

The court heard Rick conned her out of thousands - by pretending to be hugely rich but unable to access his funds.

Rick Winter has faced court over the failed relationship. Picture: The Sun

The pair lived a "lavish lifestyle", court papers said. They jetted off on holiday - to Barbados, the Cayman Islands and the Maldives, stayed in expensive hotels, took shopping trips in London and bought Rolex watches.

But there was no problem in spending all this money between 2011 and 2015 - because Rick could afford it.

He told Sacher he held shares in a company that paid him annual dividends of around £2 million ($3.5 million), he owned various houses in the UK producing a rental income, a substantial wine collection, a gold bullion account, offshore bonds, a share of a boat in Monaco and the matrimonial home that he owned jointly with his wife was worth £3 million ($5.3 million).

Rick lived the good life, travelling on first class flights around the world, and shopping at Cartier. Picture: The Sun

He also told her he was a beneficiary of two family trusts and had sold a business for £5 million ($8.9 million).

But, he explained to Sacher, his assets were frozen as a result of a divorce.

Consequently he borrowed money from her, to the tune of £400,000 ($713,000).

Now, speaking about her ordeal for the first time in the Mail On Sunday, Sacher has slammed Rick as "a silver-tongued conman" who fleeced her.

She told how Rick, the son of prominent UK political party donor John Winter, spun a web of lies from the beginning.

Telling the paper, "I thought I'd found my soulmate" she added: "We laughed every day and I loved him deeply. Little did I know I was sleeping next to a monster."

"I've read this story before and thought, 'Silly woman. It would never happen to me.

"But Richard Winter is a silver-tongued conman. Even now I have to pinch myself. I look back now and think, "Was I that gullible?" Yes, but in my defence I believe he groomed me. It didn't cross my mind that he was constantly scheming against me. I'm not a stupid girl, but I feel absolutely stupid and utterly betrayed.'"

The court said: "I must take it to be proved that Ms Barker was deceived into parting with her capital by Mr Winter, there are respects in which Ms Barker could be said to be the author of her own misfortune in that she engaged with Mr Winter in a free-spending Lavish Lifestyle.

"[She] expended the whole of her capital in doing so, based on Mr Winter's reassurance that he had sufficient monies available to him to repay her all of her capital, to the extent that she expended it on that Lavish Lifestyle."